Promoting Racial Equity in Prosecution

Prosecutors have enormous discretion to influence the outcome of a criminal case and, as a result, the course of someone’s life. The role that prosecutors have and continue to play in fueling mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on minorities is receiving closer scrutiny nationally.

For roughly a decade, beginning in 2005, district attorneys in Charlotte, Milwaukee, San Diego, Lincoln, Nebraska, and most recently Manhattan worked with us to take a step back and look at whether charging and plea decisions are influenced by race, leading black people, Latino people and other people from minority backgrounds to be punished more severely than white people for the same crimes. The method and lessons from these cities are captured in a detailed guide designed to help any district attorney’s office engage in the same type of self-reflection and reform.

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Jordan KesslerDirector of Developmentjkessler@vera.org212-376-3003

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